Entries by Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson: Truth and setting the record straight

Truth is elusive. Truth is increasingly rare and, therefore, extremely valuable. Truth is scarce and never simple. It is not ours to choose, nor is it dependent on our own capacity to tolerate it. Facts alone do not constitute truth. I am reminded of Aaron Sorkin’s character Colonel Jessup in his play and movie script, […]

/by

Steve Patterson: Soul-stirring voices in the Delta

I had heard that “still small voice” many times before. It wasn’t a loud voice; in fact it wasn’t even an audible voice. But I heard it on this day in the Mississippi Delta. I heard it loud and clear. I recognized it because I’d had recent, profound experiences with it. On at least two […]

/by

Steve Patterson: “Baloney is not cheap!”

  Alabama’s Governor George C. Wallace once appeared on a Sunday talk show during his heyday as a demagogic segregationist. There, he proclaimed a profound truth — one that has stood the test of time, and is particularly timely right now. He stated, “Baloney is not cheap!” Anyone who knows anything about the quintessential Wallace  […]

/by

Steve Patterson on Senator Fritz Hollings: The last of the Mohicans

  The roar of the last of the old Southern Democrat lions of the United States Senate has been silenced. My friend and role model, Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina is no more. As South Carolina Governor in the late 1950’s, “Fritz” Hollings helped shepherd South Carolina’s public schools to a smooth transition […]

/by

Steve Patterson: The day the music died

  Mama cried. I fought. Friday November 22, 1963. How the nation’s music went silent An assassin’s bullet kills President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. A deep black grief grips America. Hopes go unfulfilled. Speeches go unmade. Promises go unrealized. Policies go adrift. Innocence dies. Dreams are vanquished and the music goes silent. A […]

/by

Steve Patterson: A Christian Democrat Speaks

    It came out of nowhere, like a stealth bomber dropping its payload on my unsuspecting self. “Hello, Mr. Patterson how are you?” she said as I stood in a Jackson book store trying to recollect who she was and where I had met her. “I’ve been reading your columns,” she added, as I […]

/by

“Just another dumb Southerner!” Steve Patterson opinion

  Bless his cotton picking little ole heart, President Donald Trump has once again put a burr under my saddle. As the readers of my occasional columns clearly know,I’m no fan of the brash New York charlatan y’all elected as leader of the free world! Longtime respected investigative journalist Bob Woodward, in his well documented […]

/by

Steve Patterson: The way we were – Brad Dye and the end of an Era

Funerals appear on my schedule with alarming frequency these days. I have reached the age where so many of my friends have grown tired and weary, only to mercifully find their final rest in the restorative residence of Heaven. My friend, Brad Dye, Mississippi’s longest serving lieutenant-governor, found that perfect solace this week, after suffering […]

/by

“A Declaration of Conscience” revisited, by Steve Patterson

History is a great teacher. We should learn its valuable lessons, but sadly we all too frequently do not. The only reason we are “doomed,” as Santayana said, to repeat history’s mistakes is either because no one was listening the first time; or no one has sense enough to relate mankind’s hard learned lessons to […]

/by